Fiestas de Santa Fe

The cry of "Viva la Fiesta" has been reverberating through the streets of Old Santa Fe every autumn for 296 years. The sound generates a curious blend of thanksgiving, revelry and pride in the hearts of Santa Feans who celebrate Fiesta annually to commemorate Don Diego De Vargas' peaceful reoccupation of the City of Holy Faith in 1692.

The historic capital is one of the oldest in the United States. It was established by Don Juan de Oñate at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains where Santa Fe was founded in 1610. In 1680 the Indians revolted, burned the city and drove out the Spanish colonists, who fled to Guadalupe del Paso, now Juarez, Mexico. They rescued from the burning church the 29-inch wood carved Marian statue, La Conquistadora, originally brought to Santa Fe in 1625 by the missionary, Fray Alonso de Benavides.

Twelve years later, the King of Spain appointed Don Diego De Vargas to join the exiles in Guadalupe del Paso and organize a campaign for the resettlement of Santa Fe. He accomplished this difficult and remarkable mission without bloodshed on September 4, 1692. In December of the next year, the Indians resisted when De Vargas returned from a trip to recruit more colonists, so he set up an encampment outside the city near the present site of the Rosario Chapel. The anxious colonist placed La Conquistadora on a makeshift altar and implored her to intercede for the successful re-entry into the town.

Eight years after the death of De Vargas, Lt. Governor Paez Hurtado who had been one of this Captains and a close friend, influenced city officials to draft a proclamation for an annual celebration commemorating the peaceful 1692 resettlement. The 1712 proclamation established the first Fiesta de Santa Fe, and was signed by Governor Marquez de La Peñuela.

La Conquistadora is among the most venerated Marian figures in the world. She was crowned in 1954 by Cardinal Francis Spellman and again in 1960 by an apostolic representative of Pope John XXIII. Her golden crown is studded with precious stones, including a three-carat diamond. Her extensive wardrobe includes an exquisite lace mantilla from Sevilla Spain and an elaborate costume fashioned from ancient French vestments found in the old Cathedral museum.

ZOZOBRA, which has gone up in flames every year since 1924, has become one of the symbols of the city, a potent reminder of the madcap celebrations of those times and one artist's generous dedication to his adopted home.

Each year The Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe stages the burning of Will Shuster's Zozobra, kicking off the annual Fiestas de Santa Fe on the weekend following Labor Day. Zozobra centers around the ritual burning in effigy of Old Man Gloom, or Zozobra, to dispel the hardships and travails of the past year. In 2001, Zozobra attracted over 32,000 spectators to view the conflagration ritual and fireworks show at dusk.

Zozobra became part of the Fiestas in 1926, and the Kiwanis club began sponsoring the burning in 1963 as its major fundraiser.

Local artist William Howard Shuster, Jr. - "Will" (1893-1969) conceived and created Zozobra in 1924. His inspiration for Zozobra came from the Holy Week celebrations of the Yaqui Indians of Mexico; an effigy of Judas, filled with firecrackers, was led around the village on a donkey and later burned. Shuster and E. Dana Johnson, a newspaper editor and friend of Shuster's came up with the name Zozobra, which was defined as "anguish, anxiety, gloom" or in Spanish for "the gloomy one."

Fiesta Costumes from the 1920's For more information on the fiestas, check out their web site.